<nettime> Development, Ethical Trading, and Free Software

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              Development, Ethical Trading, and Free Software
                                      
                       Last modified August 14th 1999
   Abstract
   
   This paper makes the political and ethical case for the adoption of
   free software by Community Aid Abroad and other members of Oxfam
   International. It should be applicable to development agencies
   generally and to other organisations with similar values.
   
   Free software has obvious pragmatic advantages for community
   development processes, most notably in its empowerment of users. But
   the ideological foundations and social structure of the free software
   movement are also consistent with community development at a
   theoretical level.
   
   Feedback on this document would be appreciated: additional case
   studies would be particularly useful. A Community Aid Abroad
   appropriate information technology group has been set up, including a
   mailing list for discussions in this area.
   
   Contents
     * Introduction
     * Software: Drawbacks and Dangers
     * The Advantages of Free Software
     * Free Software in Action
     * Conclusion and Recommendations
       
Introduction

   Informational goods make up a sizeable and increasing fraction of the
   world's trade - and an even larger fraction of profits, since margins
   tend to be higher. (Compare Microsoft's profit/turnover ratio with
   General Electrics'.) This trend towards an "information economy" is
   continuing. Ethical trading and appropriate technology policies should
   therefore cover informational products.
   
   With some goods the major ethical concerns are in their manufacture or
   the effects on the environment of their use. Examples are wheat, iron,
   refrigerators, and so forth. Such goods are covered by a draft Oxfam
   GB Ethical Purchasing Policy, which advocates products that "are
   produced and delivered under conditions that do not involve the abuse
   or exploitation of any persons" and "have the least negative impact on
   the environment".
   
   The policy mentioned considers weapons and baby milk powder as special
   cases. But there are many products other than weapons and baby milk
   powder whose production and delivery may raise no or only minor
   environmental and ethical concerns, but which may still have effects
   of major concern in the way they affect the autonomy and independence
   of users. It is the contention of this paper that software falls into
   this category.
   
   This paper addresses only computer software. Other intellectual
   property issues are also of great importance. Control of genetic
   variability through gene patents is one example; World Intellectual
   Property Organisation treaties on copyright are another. (The latter
   ought to receive the same sort of critical response that the
   Multilateral Agreement on Investment did.)
   
     This is the context for intellectual property rights enforcement.
     This world market in knowledge is a major and profoundly
     anti-democratic new stage of capitalist development. The
     transformation of knowledge into property necessarily implies
     secrecy: common knowledge is no longer private. In this new and
     chilling stage, communication itself violates property rights. The
     WTO is transforming what was previously a universal resource of the
     human race - its collectively, historically and freely-developed
     knowledge of itself and nature - into a private and marketable
     force of production. (Allan Freeman, Fixing up the world? GATT and
     the World Trade Organisation)
     
   A good deal of the world's primary resources are located in the poorer
   countries of the world's "South", even if their exploitation is often
   in the hands of external corporations. Systems for controlling the
   distribution of information, on the other hand, are (like possession
   of capital) overwhelmingly centralised in the rich "North". This
   should be of great concern to organisations such as Oxfam
   International members which take a long-term perspective in their
   attempts to reduce the inequitable distribution of resources. As the
   United Nations Sustainable Development Networking Program says:
   
     Information and Communication Technologies are now fundamental to
     dealing with all development issues in developing countries.
     
   An Oxfam International Education Now report presents some of the
   consequences of an information economy for educational equity.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Software: Drawbacks and Dangers

   The following analysis of potential political and ethical dangers in
   software is not meant to be complete. Nor is it an analysis which
   applies equally to all kinds of software. There are certain key
   components, such as operating systems, application programming
   interfaces, and software with mass deployment, on which many
   implementations and many other software systems depend. These are more
   critical than software systems with peripheral roles.
   
   The Expense
   
   Software is often prohibitively expensive. The standard price for an
   ordinary office package might be a year's income for most of the
   world's people. As one Mexican project adopting free software wrote:
   
     The primary reason for reaching this decision was the kind of money
     we would have had to pay if we went for proprietary software: at
     US$55 for each machine with Win98 and Office, US$500 for every NT
     license and an average of 6 workstations and one server for 140000
     labs, that's a lot of money.
     
   Though "discounts" are often available on software, these tend to
   either be in exchange for accepting a local monopoly for the vendor's
   products, or an attempt to gain market share at the expense of
   competitors. Consider, for example, Microsoft's attempts to bribe
   universities and colleges into using NT.
   
   So called software "piracy" is obviously an option for those unable or
   unwilling to purchase software, and indeed it is a common choice
   throughout the South, where copyright law is often poorly enforced.
   But this places users at the mercy of the law, increasing their
   vulnerability to those rich and powerful enough to use it to their own
   advantage. Also, development organisations themselves are vulnerable
   to enforcement in their home countries, so they can not support or
   encourage such practices.
   
   As well as the up-front costs of software, there are usually hidden
   costs. Often licensing is per-user, so costs will increase with the
   size of the user base and inhibit growth. Support for proprietary
   software is almost always prohibitively expensive. Frequent software
   upgrades may be required to maintain compatibility and functionality
   (consider the deliberate modification by Microsoft of the file format
   in successive versions of Word, in order to force users to upgrade to
   newer versions). And software tends, especially with upgrades, to
   require more powerful, and hence more expensive, hardware. These
   hidden costs are often recurrent.
   
   Lack of Openness
   
   Open standards and protocols are in the interests of consumers, and
   indeed of most businesses: they allow genuine market competition,
   giving users options and choices. Closed standards and protocols and
   technical secrets, on the contrary, benefit only those seeking to
   maintain or attain monopoly control of markets by decommoditizing
   software. (Proprietary software can, of course, use open standards and
   protocols, but much of it doesn't.)
   
   Security and Privacy
   
   The use of black-box proprietary software without source code creates
   security risks, since it makes the detection of Trojan horses rather
   difficult. One high-profile case is the Melissa Virus. An extreme case
   is government surveillance: an Australian government report (the Walsh
   Report, see sections 6.2.10 and 6.2.11) has recommended that security
   agencies arrange for back doors to be inserted into mass-market
   commercial software to allow eavesdropping. Perhaps it is paranoia to
   think that the United States National Security Agency has already
   arranged for this to be done, but when peoples' lives are at stake,
   can one really trust (say) Microsoft Word when vulnerable West Papuan
   or East Timorese activists are involved?
   
   From a privacy point of view, some worrying features are known to have
   been built into popular proprietary software packages. Microsoft
   Windows and recent versions of Office include a unique computer
   identifier in all documents - an identifier which is sent to Microsoft
   on registration of software, as well as in cookies set by Microsoft's
   web site. The implications of this for anyone trying to maintain
   anonymous - whistle-blowers and activists most obviously - are
   frightening. (See analysis and a news report from CNET; Paul Ferris
   points the obvious argument for free software in "Of Corporations,
   Privacy, and Open Source Software".)
   
   The Creation of New Dependencies
   
   Proprietary software increases the dependence of individuals,
   organisations, and communities on external forces - typically large
   corporations with a very poor track record on acting in the public
   interest. There are dependencies for support, installation and problem
   fixing, sometimes in critical systems. There are dependencies for
   upgrades and compatibility. There are dependencies when modification
   or extended functionality is required. And there are ongoing financial
   dependencies if licensing is recurrent.
   
   Political dependencies can result from the use of proprietary
   software, too. For example, an Irish ISP under attack for hosting the
   top level East Timor domain .tp was helped out by hackers and
   community activists (setting up a secure Linux installation). Given
   that this attack was probably carried out with the connivance of
   elements of the Indonesian government, it is hard to see a commercial
   vendor with a significant market presence in Indonesia being so
   forthcoming with support.
   
   Nearly exact parallels to this exist in agriculture, where the
   patenting of seed varieties and genome sequences and the creation of
   non-seeding varieties are used to impose long-term dependencies on
   farmers.
   
   An Analogy: Baby-milk Powder
   
   The effects of baby-milk powder on poor infants (which has sparked a
   Nestle campaign/boycott) provide an analogy to the effects of
   proprietary software.
   
   Sending information in Microsoft Word format to correspondents in
   Eritrea is analagous to Nestle advertising baby milk powder to Indian
   mothers. It encourages the recipients to go down a path which is not
   in their best interests, and from which it is not easy for them to
   recover. The apparent benefits (the doctor recommended it; we will be
   able to read the documents sent to us) may be considerable and the
   initial costs involved (to stop breast-feeding and switch to milk
   powder; to start using Microsoft Office) may be subsidised, hidden, or
   zero (with "piracy"), but the long-term effects are to make the
   recipients dependent on expensive recurrent inputs, and to burden them
   with ultimately very high costs.
   
   Moreover, because documents can be easily copied and because there are
   strong pressures to conform to group/majority standards in document
   formats, pushing individuals towards proprietary software and document
   formats can snowball to affect entire communities, not just the
   individuals initially involved.
   
   Restrictions on Self-help
   
   Proprietary software not only creates new dependencies: it actively
   hinders self-help, mutual aid, and community development.
     * Users cannot freely share software with others in the community,
       or with other communities.
     * The possibilities for building local support and maintainance
       systems are limited.
     * Modification of software to fit local needs is not possible,
       leaving communities with software designed to meet the needs of
       wealthy Northern users and companies, which may not be appropriate
       for them.
       
   An Example: Language Support
   
   Language support provides a good example of the advantages of free
   software in allowing people to adapt products to their own ends and
   take control of their lives. Operating systems and word processing
   software support only a limited range of languages. Iceland, in order
   to help preserve its language, wants Icelandic support added to
   Microsoft Windows - and is even willing to pay for it. But without
   access to the source code - and the right to modify it - they are
   totally dependent on Microsoft's cooperation. (See an article in the
   Seattle Times and an article by Martin Vermeer which argues that lack
   of software localisation is a threat to cultural diversity.)
   
   Whatever the outcome of this particular case, it must be noted that
   Iceland is hardly a poor or uninfluential nation. There is absolutely
   no hope of Windows being modified to support Aymara or Lardil or other
   indigenous languages: the spread of such proprietary software will
   continue to contribute to their marginalisation.
   
   In contrast, the source code to the GNU/Linux operating system is
   available and can be freely modified, so groups are able to add
   support for their languages. See, as an example, the KDE
   Internationalization Page (KDE is a desktop for GNU/Linux). Another
   example of the kind of thing that access to source code allows is the
   Omega Typesetting System, a modification of the free TeX typesetting
   system "designed for printing all of the world's languages, modern or
   ancient, common or rare". This sort of extension or modification is
   simply not possible with proprietary word-processing packages.
   
   Unsustainable
   
   Sustainable development should favour unlimited resources over finite
   ones. But while software appears to be a renewable resource, its
   control by profit-making corporations, as Intellectual Property,
   effectively turns it into a finite resource.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
The Advantages of Free Software

   What is Free Software?
   
   The Free Software Foundation's "What is Free Software?" provides a
   good introduction to free software.
   
     `Free software'' refers to the users' freedom to run, copy,
     distribute, study, change and improve the software. More precisely,
     it refers to three levels of freedom:
     * The freedom to study how the program works and adapt it to your
       needs.
     * The freedom to redistribute copies so you can share with your
       neighbor.
     * The freedom to improve the program, and release your improvements
       to the public, so that the whole community benefits.
       
   A key point is that "free" refers to liberty, not price. Software is
   only "free" if users have the freedom to copy, modify, and distribute
   it, and to share it with others. A key necessity for this is access to
   the source code.
   
   Prominent examples of free software are the Linux kernel and the GNU
   system environment, which together constitute a complete operating
   system (an alternative to Windows or MacOS), and the Apache web server
   and sendmail mail transport agent, which between them provide more
   than 50% of the Internet's web sites and handle perhaps 80% of the
   world's email.
   
   Pragmatic Advantages
   
   Quite independently of any ethical and political considerations, there
   are also pragmatic and technical arguments for the deployment of free
   software systems.
     * Some free software products are widely recognised as more reliable
       and robust, more powerful, and more secure than their proprietary
       counterparts, and a plausible argument can be made that this is
       not just accidental, but a consequence of their open development,
       implementation, and testing.
       Rob Bos puts it well in 32bitsonline
       
     Free software is better than non-free software. It works better, it
     works faster, it works longer. Open source programs are tried and
     proven, they are constantly pressed from every direction to do
     specific tasks, and do them well; and for the simple reason that
     they are written to work, not simply to sell copies. Free software
     doesn't just work better, it works orders of magnitude better. Open
     sourcing an application gives the source code to a large number of
     developers, instead of a small, tight group. Free software projects
     have a pool of developers and an effective budget multiple times
     higher than an equivalent proprietary development project, and
     will, given all other equal things, advance at a rate many times
     faster because of their access to an much larger development team.
     Peer review of code isn't just a pipe dream, it is an essential
     means to writing superior applications, no matter where they are
     written.
     * Free software can typically be obtained for the cost of the media
       (typically a few dollars for a CD) or network traffic (for
       distribution via computer networks). It can always be freely
       distributed. The pragmatic benefits of this should be obvious, but
       in some contexts the price of free software can also take on
       political significance:
       
     I live in India, one of the poorest countries in the world, with a
     large number of awfully bright, poor people. In India, today, the
     entry-level programmer (C knowledge but no work experience) earns
     $100 a month, and it is not routine for him to have a computer at
     home. Entry-level computers at $250 and below will attract millions
     of buyers in India, who will find the difference between $250 and
     $750 to be a massive one.
     
     Industry experts look at around 200 million existing computers, 80%
     of which run Microsoft OSes. It's useful to focus on the next
     billion computer sales. In this, I see the price-tag of $0 as being
     a critical product feature.
     Ajay Shah - Unix on a billion desktops?
     * Free software is often less demanding of resources, extending the
       lifespan of older hardware. As an example of what this allows,
       consider Project Computer Bank, an Australian venture to supply
       old computer equipment running GNU/Linux to low income earners,
       community groups, and disadvantaged schools.
       
   Freedom From Dependencies
   
     ``Community Aid Abroad's vision is for a fair world in which people
     control their own lives, their basic rights are achieved and the
     environment is sustained.'' (emphasis added)
     
   Free software does not create dependencies on multinational
   corporations. Support commonly comes from user groups and online
   communities, which often provide vastly better support than commercial
   alternatives. Commercial support is available for free software
   systems, but users of free software can not be tied to single
   suppliers or vendors.
   
   Access to the source code greatly increases users' options. It allows
   not just the unrestricted sharing of software packages but also their
   easy modification to suit local needs and requirements.
   
   The value of free software in avoiding dependencies has been
   recognised by businesses and by governments.
   
     Let's say you are a chief technical officer (CTO) at a Fortune 500
     company and you have just spent millions of dollars on a strategic
     business system with software you cannot see inside and cannot
     modify, software that depends on a single vendor to service. Now
     are those systems going to change to serve your business plan or
     your vendor's business plan?
     
     ...it probably will not be long before buying closed-source
     software for your key infrastructure is considered the height of
     irresponsibility.
     
     Eric S. Raymond in Intellectual Capital
     
     "Scandinavia, Germany, and France are some of the main centers of
     Linux use. Some people say that this is because companies and the
     government want to avoid becoming too dependent on U.S. -- read
     Microsoft -- products."
     
     Kalle Dalheimer, quoted in OSS Europe
     
   Development of free software is done by those who have the necessary
   skills and resources - the resulting products are available for use by
   whoever needs it.
   
     With Linux, the people who use the system get to [affect the way]
     the system [develops]. It's democracy in the sense that you don't
     surrender control. Anybody can do anything. It boils down to [the
     fact that] you must be [competent], but that's a good way of
     separating the people who do the work. And even the [people who]
     don't make changes can make suggestions and can do testing and
     things like that.
     
     Linus Torvalds, interview with upsidedown.com.
     
   Shared Values
   
   Most free software has been produced through decentralised,
   community-based development processes which are usually open to anyone
   with the right technical skills (or a willingness to learn) who is
   prepared to do the work. Users of free software can join software
   development communities and participate in the refinement and
   improvement of existing software, or in the development of entirely
   new programs, building on what already exists.
   
   Many free software development projects are almost model community
   development projects. They are based on open communication,
   inclusiveness, personal relationships, and working for the good of the
   community as a whole. In a paper Technology and Pleasure, Gisle
   Hannemyr describes the history of the "hacker" community, placing it
   in the artisan tradition and in opposition to Taylorism. He describes
   its imperatives as:
   
          reject hierarchies
          mistrust authority
          promote decentralization
          share information
          serve your community
          
   and includes among its position statements:
   
          when creating computer artifacts, not only the observable
          results, but the craftsmanship in execution matters
          practice is superior to theory
          people should only be judged on merit (not by appearance, age,
          race or position)
          you can create art and beauty by the means of a computer
          
   The long-term effects of free software and associated changes are
   likely to be significant:
   
     Oscar Wilde says somewhere that the problem with socialism is that
     it takes up too many evenings. The problems with anarchism as a
     social system are also about transaction costs. But the digital
     revolution alters two aspects of political economy that have been
     otherwise invariant throughout human history. All software has zero
     marginal cost in the world of the Net, while the costs of social
     coordination have been so far reduced as to permit the rapid
     formation and dissolution of large-scale and highly diverse social
     groupings entirely without geographic limitation. Such fundamental
     change in the material circumstances of life necessarily produces
     equally fundamental changes in culture.
     
     Ebden Moglen, Anarchism Triumphant: Free Software and the Death of
     Copyright
     
   In many ways the ethics of free software reflect that of the Internet
   community more generally - a community which is still resisting
   commercialisation of the Net.
   
   Education and Technology Transfer
   
   Free software both encourages learning and experimentation and in turn
   benefits from it. Free software is widespread in educational
   institutions, since access to the source code makes free software an
   ideal tool for teaching: indeed much free software began as learning
   exercises.
   
   Due to low start-up costs and rapid change, software development and
   the information economy more generally offer a possible way for the
   South to build high value industries, leapfrogging older technologies
   and even modes of production. The flourishing Indian software industry
   provides an obvious example. But if these industries are built on
   proprietary products and protocols owned by multinational
   corporations, then this will only reinforce one-sided dependencies.
   Free software has obvious advantages here.
   
   Free software lends itself to collaborative, community-based
   development at all scales from cottage industry to world-wide efforts
   involving the collaboration of thousands of people. Internet access
   potentially offers the poor the ability to communicate directly with
   the rest of the world, to directly present their own ideas and
   perspectives. Combined with the free software development model, it
   allows them to participate in creating and moulding the technologies
   and systems that will determine their future.
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Free Software in Action

   The advantages of free software for community and development
   organisations have been recognised by others: The arguments sketched
   above apply not just to development organisations but to governments
   and to some extent even to businesses.
   
   The United Nations
   UNESCO is handing out free Linux CDROMs to community, scientific, and
   educational projects in Latin America. 
   
     We believe LINUX can play a very important role in Latin American
     and Caribbean modernisation, constructing networks to permit a
     great number of universities, colleges, schools and educational
     centers, to connect to Internet in order to use this fabulous tool
     to improve their scientific and cultural levels. In a few words,
     LINUX is the tool which permits to reduce the "technological gap"
     between the countries. LINUX permits the acces to "the informatics
     the most advanced" implemented according to the reduced economic
     capacities in our region. LINUX is a new way to make informatics,
     where the most important thing is "the technical quality and people
     solidarity"
     
   And the UNDP is running a Sustainable Development Networking Program,
   with support from the Linux vendor Red Hat.
   
   Mexico's Scholar Net
   http://www.linux.org.mx/arturo/scholar/
   
     I work as the project leader of the "Scholar Net", a program that
     aims to bring computers and the net to every elementary and
     mid-level school in Mexico. We expect to install from 20 to 35
     thousand labs per year to a total of 140,000 centers in the next
     five years.
     
     Due to matters of cost, reliability and configurability, we plan to
     use GNU/Linux to replace the proprietary server options and, now
     thanks to GNOME, the proprietary desktop application options.
     
   SatelLife
   SatelLife is an international not-for-profit organization employing
   satellite, telephone and radio networking technology to serve the
   health communication and information needs of countries in the
   developing world.
   
     http://www.data.com/issue/981021/people.html
     
     For starters, the staff of Satellife had to seek out and master
     technologies cheap enough for users in the world's poorest
     countries but reliable enough to deliver vital medical information
     fast. And the organization didn't have the funds that corporate IT
     departments have for equipment and software-so it used free and
     open-source software to link users to forums. And as the Internet
     became a more vital tool, Satellife had to make sure that users
     without browsers could still get information via the Web. It also
     used second-hand gear where possible and relied on research
     institutes and discussion groups, rather than high-priced
     consultants, for advice.
     
   The Littlefish Health Project
   
     Project Vision: "To create a user friendly patient information and
     recall system on an open source basis with the focus on use by
     community based primary health care health organisations in the
     developing world or remote and rural areas or areas of need.
     
   (And Daniel L. Johnson has written a paper on free software in medical
   information management.)
   
   The Community Broadcasting Association of Australia (CBAA)
   An impassioned but carefully put together argument for use of Linux by
   the CBAA. Arguing on both technical and ethical grounds, most of this
   is directly relevant to development organisations.
   
     The open source movement, and Linux is particular, are massive
     volunteer non-profit projects which share the spirit of community
     media. It's a radical alternative movement creating successful
     mainstream software. In fact, it's the same movement that produced
     the software that the internet revolution depends on. Now the
     movement has produced a cutting edge technology which suits the
     CBAA's needs far better than the commercial competition. The
     technology is Linux. A Linux server is one the CBAA could be proud
     of.
     
   (Also mentioned in a Newswire story on the politics of software.)
     _________________________________________________________________
   
Conclusion and Recommendations

   The free software movement embodies principles consistent with those
   of Community Aid Abroad and Oxfam International. Free software
   products are tools which fit the needs of Oxfam International members,
   in many cases better than alternative proprietary products.
   
   It is therefore recommended that:
     * Development organisations should include software in their
       policies on ethical purchasing and appropriate technology; such
       policies should encourage the use of free software and open
       protocols.
     * Development organisations should encourage and assist project
       partners in the deployment of software systems that will enable
       them to "take control of their own destiny", and to reduce their
       dependence on the developed world. They should consider the major
       advantages free software has in this area.
     * Development organisations should ultimately try to free themselves
       from the shackles of proprietary software.
       
   Danny Yee <danny@anatomy.usyd.edu.au>
     _________________________________________________________________
   
   The author is one of the Community Aid Abroad webmasters, a board
   member of Electronic Frontiers Australia, and an employee of Sydney
   University. But the opinions expressed in this paper are personal and
   do not necessarily reflect the policies of any of these organisations.
   
   Thanks to Cameron Tampion, Mike Gifford, Charlie Brady, Greg Taylor,
   Ronni Martin, and Richard Stallman for feedback on this document.

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